According to the Middle East defense media "Tactical Intelligence" website, after Pakistan was equipped with a Red Flag 9 missile regiment, now, Saudi Arabia is also ready to import Red Flag 9 missiles. Because Saudi Arabia has a very strong demand for air defense and anti-missile defense.
Since the outbreak of war in Yemen in 2015, Yemen's Houthi forces have fired more than 500 ballistic missiles, as well as hundreds of suicide drones and cruise missiles, at Saudi coalition and Saudi targets.
Since the outbreak of the war 7 years ago, the Saudi coalition army has lost hundreds of generals, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the Hadi army, etc. This year alone, among the generals killed and wounded by the Houthi missile drones and ambushes are Brigadier General Suleiman Tavira, commander of the Saudi Special Forces in Yemen, Brigadi Abdullah Al-Dharhani, commander of the 141st Infantry Brigade of the Hadi Armed Forces in Yemen, Brigadi General Hamid Al-Yosuf, commander of the 72nd Brigade, Brigadier General Yahya Mohammad Al-Bakri, chief of staff of the 1st Mountain Infantry Brigade, and Naji Bin Naji, assistant commander of the Seventh Military Region Brigadier General Ayed.
At the same time, there is Major General Buhaíba, commander of the 26th Brigade of the Hadi Army, Major General Amin Al-Wiley, commander of the Sixth Military Region, Major General Ali Zafer al-Shehri, commander of the King Khalid Air Base in Saudi Arabia, and so on.
At the same time, Yemen's Houthi armed missiles and drones have also hit Saudi Arabia's oil and economic facilities hard. In the first half of this year alone, the Houthis launched 68 missile raids and 245 suicide drone raids, each missile raid had at least multiple missiles, and every suicide drone raid had at least multiple drones, and the entire scale and frequency of the attack were very large.
Since the beginning of this year, Saudi Arabia's oil facilities in the Jeddah, Jizan and Jubail regions, gas pipelines in the Jeddah region, and multiple airports have been repeatedly raided by large-scale missiles and drones by Yemen's Houthi armed forces. Although Saudi anti-aircraft missiles shot down a large number of missiles and drones, the successful penetration of missiles and drones caused great damage to Saudi oil and gas facilities.
On October 21, Apache attacked helicopter hangars, ammunition depots and other targets at a military base in southern Saudi Arabia, and was attacked by at least five ballistic missiles, killing 35 people. And there have been many times when the bullet ballistic missiles of Yemen's Houthi armed forces exploded directly over the tent camp area of the Saudi base, causing very serious equipment and personnel losses.
Saudi Arabia desperately needs more anti-aircraft weapons, and Patriot missiles alone are no longer enough. In 2017, the US "Defense News" reported: The American Raytheon Company revealed at the Dubai Air Show that the American Patriot series air defense system has performed very well in Saudi Arabia, intercepting more than 100 ballistic missiles from the gate since 2015. However, the weakness of the Patriot missile's low-altitude defense has also allowed more missiles to form a surprise defense.
The Hongqi 9P missile introduced by Pakistan this time has a 260-kilometer actual interception capability, and can intercept ballistic missiles with a range of up to 1,000 kilometers. With the ability to continuously launch multiple targets after launch, fully active radar guidance, autonomous attack at the same time multiple targets continuously launch interception. One Red Flag 9 Missile Regiment consists of 3 battalion-level units, and 1 battalion has 8 quad-mounted anti-aircraft missile launchers with 32 missiles. A Red Flag 0 air defense missile regiment can strike up to 24 air targets at the same time.
The Saudi military could deploy to protect military bases in the border areas, or near oil facilities in southern Saudi Arabia to protect oil and gas facilities. However, Yemen is more than 500,000 square kilometers, and Saudi Arabia is also more than 2.25 million square kilometers. In order to protect all targets, one or two Red Flag 9 missile regiments are certainly not enough, at least ten or eight Red Flag 9 air defense missile regiments are needed to block the Uninterrupted missile and drone raids of the Houthi armed forces.